


Imitation Death

by StudentOfEtherium



Category: New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Despair, Gen, Headcanon, Orphans, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:28:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25898200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StudentOfEtherium/pseuds/StudentOfEtherium
Summary: Tsumugi thinks back on her life.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 7





	Imitation Death

Tsumugi watched as the world crumbled around her. She felt no fear. She didn't cry. As she watched everything she had dedicated herself to be destroyed around her, she only felt disappointment. This shouldn't have been happening. Her plan had been perfect. Years of her life had been spent ensuring it would go by without error. At first, it had. Everything had gone according to plan.

Maybe it was due to some undiscovered luck that the twink had survived. Granted, Kaede’s plan had been poorly thought out in the first place, so maybe Tsumugi shouldn't have been surprised when it failed. No matter what the reason, Tsumugi had needed to step in. Maybe that should have been when she first noticed it was falling apart. Instead, it wasn't until Angie had started running her cult that she began to worry.

She had tried infiltrating the cult to find a way to undermine it, but that had been a difficult task. Perhaps if Korekiyo hadn't killed her, the Ultimate Artist would have been able to bring an end to the killing game.

From that point onwards, things only continued to spiral. Kokichi’s actions at first seemed harmless, but he had been more clever than she had realized. The plan he hatched with Kaito especially had thrown her off. By the time the last trial started, she was in despair.

Despair. The thing she had treasured. As a child of The Tragedy, she had been exposed to it throughout her life. Like many such children, she had lost her parents to a Remnant of Despair. Unlike the rest, however, the woman who had killed her parents had taken her in and raised her. At first, she had been resistant to the silver-haired woman, but in time the two grew close. The woman chose to bring Tsumugi into despair. It was most certainly not a healthy environment for a child to grow up in, surrounded by death and suffering. Tsumugi never minded. She grew to love the woman as a mother and cherished what she got from her. Unfortunately, they could only spend so long together before. She was captured by the Future Foundation and brainwashed away from despair. Tsumugi never saw her again. Instead, she was kidnapped by the Future Foundation and taken into a program for orphans of The Tragedy. She had been resistant at first, wanting nothing more than to be back with the silver-haired woman. That desire never went away, but she soon learned what she could gain from copying the other children. By replicating their behaviors, she fooled the adults into thinking she was “cured”. They treated her like she was finally right again. She never stopped hating them. That's when she began her plans.

When New Hope's Peak Academy was founded, all the orphans of despair were enrolled. Tsumugi was still in elementary school at the time. She continued to hone her skills of copying and forgery. If New Hope's Peak Academy still focused on talents and talented students, perhaps she would have been enrolled for that. Her classes consisted of everything a normal school would and Tsumugi proved to be a rather average student. Her grades were good, but she made sure to never stand out.

The class she took most to was history. They taught many things and in many ways it resembled a normal history class, but one topic drew her attention more than the others. Despair. The teachers told her of despair, of Junko and The Tragedy. Of course, the class knew of this. They had lived through it, after all. Some of her classmates even had to be excused from class due to trauma triggers. But Tsumugi was always focused with rapt attention. What was supposed to be tales of the worst events the world had ever faced instead read to her as something to live up to. Junko, who until now had only been a name the silver-haired woman had mentioned in passing, became what she lived for. And so she continued to copy.

When she entered high school, she was still mostly surrounded by the same orphans she had now spent much of her life with. She played a number of them to help in her plans and out of sight of watchful teachers and guardians, her killing game entered production. Years of planning became reality. Of course, none of her classmates knew what she was doing. The blonde was given instructions about what to build void of any context and frequently out of order. The trickster played along, such that Tsumugi even let him know about some of her plans. However, even he never knew the full weight of what she wanted to do.

When she first locked her class away inside her fake school, they had been shocked. That was followed by horror and at last, despair. She took away their memories and gave them new ones, confident that her plans would be as perfect as her imitations.

But as she stood there, she knew. She had failed. Hope had once again overcome despair. 

Her world was ending. She knew she wouldn't survive. And so she watched. The sight of it filled her with despair. It was crushing, defeating. It was the worst thing she had ever felt in her life. Tsumugi felt true despair for the first time and she loved it. She knew her life was nearly over. She didn't want to survive this. If her plan had to fail, let it be as she lived. The Cosplaycat Criminal died an imitation death.

**Author's Note:**

> happy birthday Tsumugi! she's one of my favorite V3 girls so i wanted to make something for her birthday and here we are
> 
> this fic is built off some headcanons i have for V3, but a lot is stuff i came up with while writing this lol. it's a fun setting and i might write here (i say that about all my one-shots)


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